870 patterning issues with tss

[dzsmith]

So I started shooting tss through my 870 2 seasons ago. My 870 has a 21" barrel, and I currently shoot a sumtoy 665 choke.  I used to shoot longbeards with a sumtoy 655 choke and had excellent results for years with that setup considering it was lead and a short barrel. Forcing cone is bored out and I would polish my barrel once a season before the season, super shiney bore with the exception of where the forcing cone once was. so I shoot apex gt-3 shells which is 12 guage 3" 2.25oz tss 9s. The best pattern I got was 391 pellets in a 10" circle at 40 yards. Not too bad, will definetly kill a turkey at any reasonable distance and then some.....but I still thought there was room for improvement, even with that short of a barrel. I wanted to break 400. the pattern showed a little sign of blowout, so I figured maybe go with a slightly more open choke even though most 870 shooters using tss seem to be shooting a 665 restriction. So fast forward to this year. I bought a sumtoy 670 choke. After running a few loads through it, the pattern averaged in the 360s. best being 365 pellets in a 10" circle at 40 yards. Of course, the pattern is acceptable for hunting but the pattern did get technically worse. One thing that was different , was the temps were cold outside. 50s maybe peaking in the 60s. So....the conclusion to me is with a 21" barrel and the 665 constriction maybe high 300s..."380s and 390s" is as good as its going to get for me. I have a spare stock barrel ive saved over the years in case I wanted to have work done to it. im wondering if I cut it down staying slightly longer in the 22-24" range, and run the same choke , if it would push me into the 400+ pellet threshold at 40 yards. perhaps this seems stupid and unnecessary....and it may be but I love punching paper and knowing I have my setup as efficient as possible. With all this said, ive personally seen others with 21" barrels break 400 with no issues some by a long shot like upper 400s. One more thing to add. I had 2 shells yesterday out of the 12 I fired that simply failed to perform, from a clean barrel at that. One at 40 yards simply fell apart, it put maybe 150 pellets in a 10" circle, pattern covered the entire 36" piece of paper. the other failed at 20 yards, same result covered the entire paper at 20 yards.....I cannot wrap my head around those 2 shots. No I didn't miss, the wad traveled the distance to the target on both shot, verified by a spotter. I clean my barrel with denatured alcohol, and don't usually fire more than 3 between a cleaning, as from my experience with this gun is when the pattern starts to fall off . No idea, if it was just a poorly loaded shell or what, but 2 shells from 2 5rd boxes to do that was not good, and im glad it was on paper and not a turkey. Any input into anything ive mentioned in this long article would be greatly appreciated.

[Gobble!]

Those failures sound like a shell issue. As long as your POA/POI were still on you got a bad load. As much shooting as your doing you should consider loading your own. I'm recovering around 93% of the shot I pattern, if I remember correctly, and fully trust my quality control. I would be second guessing those Apex shells now in the moment of truth.

Indian Creek chokes have gotten me exactly where I wanted to be with TSS and my 870.

[dzsmith]

that's what im thinking. I didn't have any failed loads when patterning last year. Some of the loads I shot this year are 2 years old because I bought them a season before I started shooting them so they were 2018 shells. but I had good success last year shooting at turkeys from 0-50...even though I didn't break 400 pellets, I was averaging in the 380s and 90s so I knew it was plenty of shell. It wasn't until this year I went up a choke size with no success and then back to my original choke and saw the 2 shells just simply fail to pattern. out of the 2 and 1/4 boxes I shot through it. Ive got some more boxes coming that will be this years stock. Im going to shoot several and see what the consistency is...at this point with little time to play around Im hoping to get good enough to hunt...but this summer I do plan on starting to reload. I want to know every shell I make is exactly the same, and then go from there.

[ShootingABN!]

Contact William again at SumToy and see what he'll make for you.

[dzsmith]

well he made the 665 for me and the 670 for me. he also did the barrel work several years ago, cut it down to 21 and bored the forcing cone out. My orginal choke he made me was a 655 for shooting long beard 6s which I shot for years but he had access to the long beard shells to see what size worked best, so the only choke size I lack is a 660, and I just bought a sumtoy 660 from another guy....so that's about all I got left to try. I did shoot a non staged 660 jellyhead with the apex and it produced a worse pattern than the 665 so I don't predict the sumtoy 660 to do any different but I could be wrong because the indian creek 665 shot a worse pattern, not by much though. ill have every choke size he makes from a 655 to 670. He cant really build me a choke for the apex unless I send him the shells to test with, in all honestly its cheaper to just buy a choke outright and test it myself by the time I sent him 25 shells to build it for me.

[Reloader]

I would suggest loading your own for better consistency. ST and IC usually pattern quite well, but I seem to have better luck with cheaper chokes that don't have wad strippers or aggressive porting in my 12s. The old Star Dot is a real jewel and Colonial Arms still makes a choke nearly identical. Holler at me if you want to get into loading and I'll teach you how. It is really simple.

[SumToy]

I would suggest loading your own for better consistency. ST and IC usually pattern quite well, but I seem to have better luck with cheaper chokes that don't have wad strippers or aggressive porting in my 12s. The old Star Dot is a real jewel and Colonial Arms still makes a choke nearly identical. Holler at me if you want to get into loading and I'll teach you how. It is really simple.

I have seen this in a few post.   I keep up with it and when you see a few chokes that should shoot not it is shell.  If  one choke with few shells it the choke.   I wander what change in the load from last year to this.   

[roberthyman14]

I would suggest loading your own for better consistency. ST and IC usually pattern quite well, but I seem to have better luck with cheaper chokes that don't have wad strippers or aggressive porting in my 12s. The old Star Dot is a real jewel and Colonial Arms still makes a choke nearly identical. Holler at me if you want to get into loading and I'll teach you how. It is really simple.

I couldn't remember what choke I had in my turkey gun.  It's always shot well.  When I changed everything over to my new gun safe, i found the old package for my choke.  It's an ol star dot. 


Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[dzsmith]

I would suggest loading your own for better consistency. ST and IC usually pattern quite well, but I seem to have better luck with cheaper chokes that don't have wad strippers or aggressive porting in my 12s. The old Star Dot is a real jewel and Colonial Arms still makes a choke nearly identical. Holler at me if you want to get into loading and I'll teach you how. It is really simple.

I have seen this in a few post.   I keep up with it and when you see a few chokes that should shoot not it is shell.  If  one choke with few shells it the choke.   I wander what change in the load from last year to this.

I definetly think it's a shell thing . But then again a friend of mine shoots the same shells from the same lot. Supernova with a sumtoy 670, and his gun is firing the best it ever has, better than last year with the same loads. We pattern side by side every year. His gun has never outshot my 870 til this year. It was a cold day and I got a 660 sumtoy heading my way , probably gonna roll with the 665 again this year since I have so many Apex left , but after this season I'm loading my own. Way too much money down the pipe to keep buying them. I know a lot of people just shoot there gun, see a bunch of holes and say that's good, but I see way too many people buying tss, shooting 40 yards getting an equivalent pattern to long beards or mag blends and calling it good..... IMO if you are paying 50 bucks for shells ..... they better punch paper twice as good or you might as well go back to shooting lead. That's just my opinion.